REMINDERS

17:09

Every Single Fucking Day:

• For a vitamin C boost, slice a few strawberries into your cereal.

  I got a little pamphlet in the mail from my health care provider outlining ways that I can prevent myself from needing their help. Economic sense of purchasing prevention vs. cure aside, it seems uncharacteristically motherly for a big company. They wrote to me just to remind me to eat fruits and vegetables! It doesn't just cover things directly related to Health, either. There's a section labeled "Making Tough Choices". It's not about any specific choice that they want to direct your attention to, it's actually about methods for making difficult, stressful decisions. I'm looking for the part where it asks if I've found a nice christian girl, with suggested relatives of friends as bullet points.

  Apparently, most people:

• Compare the situation to past experiences or mental pictures
• Rely on information in their memories

  FCHP, Inc suggests that I

• Develop a balance sheet that lists the avilable choices
• Write down the pros and cons of each choice, including all financial, social and emotional costs
• Make the choice that offers the maximum benefit at the lowest cost

  One of my first girlfriends made a balance sheet just like that, comparing me to some other guy. She's married to the other guy now. My pros were basically "better looking", and my cons condensed to "doesn't love me".

  Parts of my new computer have started to arrive. Egghead computer made an attempt to deliver while I was at work, which is where I will always be when people try to give me things at my house. They required a signature to deliver the sound card, SCSI adapter, and the CDROM drive, but after lugging the 83 pound monitor up the stairs to my door, they decided it would be okay if they just left that particular thing where it was. Same goes for whoever delivered the new speaker system, which isn't THAT heavy. The main problem with allowing me to build my own computer like this is that I tend to order parts that don't quite exist yet. (I have to wait until the 27th for the video card to become available.) The monitor is HUGE. I've never used a 21" monitor before. This thing is bigger than my TV. It looks like a cartoon caricature of a normal monitor. The speakers are great, but I don't have anything close enough behind me that I can put the rear-channel speakers on, so they stand on little (cute!) tripods behind my desk until I actually get a sound subsystem with more than 2 channels. Then I'll move them behind me whenever I feel like being surrounded. In the course of ordering the new machine, I discovered that the "Main Board" is the cheapest part of the computer. Well, maybe the keyboard and mouse are cheaper, but my sound card costs more than the MB. Buying everything seperately gives me a sense of "colony", like the new machine is invulnerable to damage because any malfunctioning part can be replaced at a fairly low cost. (Except the monitor. Jesus.)

  Brett's friend Bobby brought Joust over the other day. It's a good thing there's a ramp up to the level of my apartment (good to know about, but I don't think monitor delivery guy did), because the thing is possibly the most encumbering thing I've ever carried. AND, since it's a collector's item, I had to be VERY VERY CAREFUL not to scratch it against things or even drag its brittle edges against the carpet. It's in the living room now. If I walk out of my room and look down the hall, I see a 5 foot picture of an ostrich, side graphics for the machine. Joust is very hard, because the attacking part of your bird is the bottom, and you can't generate any downward thrust. It's like "Moon Lander", but with a bunch of moon landers trying to land on each other. Moon lander deathmatch would have been very popular back in its era.

  
  Well, here's me at work